Zenith Intergalactic
Beginnings “Ladon?” “Yeah?” “You’ve been approved for the purchase of the Shuttle. Congratulations on your new vessel....Captain.” Ladon smiled at the man and took the proffered auth chit from his hand. He walked along the station’s docking bay and stopped alongside his new ship. He ran his hands over the smooth titanium hull, amazed that he was now the owner of this incredible vessel. He frowned as he saw the weld joints where the weapons had been removed. It was a danger, but one he was willing to take. The profits he could make as a starship captain were much greater than any he could make on the tiny planet in the Gatopea sector, though it would probably be a very lonely job. He clicked the button on the auth chit and a door detached seamlessly from the hull. The smell of freshly cleaned leather rolled out of the open door. Ladon raised an eyebrow at the hose-clad leg that he could see. The owner of the leg was currently occupying his seat in the cockpit. A sultry voice rolled out of the tiny craft. “I supose you’re Ladon, is that right?” Ladon smiled. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be as lonely as he thought... 'Empire/Cygni arc' “Jenna, you sure you’re going to be fine in the Androla sector? Cygni’s been acting up there lately and last I checked Empire was hand in hand with them,” said Ladon. “Aw sweetie, I’ll be fine. No one messes with an Ares X+ class anyway!” laughed his now-girlfriend. Ladon smiled as her voice rang across the comms. She had made his life so much easier on the space lanes and had taken greatly to being in the “cockpit.” He chuckled at the ribald double entendre. “Alright, Jenna. Don’t you dare get kidnapped on me, alright? Ladon out.” He hung up the comms unit and tapped a few buttons on his dash. A bad feeling began to settle in his stomach, though, and the more he prepared for launch, the worse it got, until finally he couldn’t stand it anymore. He dialed up the merc registry and swiped through the list (laughing at the poor sap in the Shuttle-A+ class) until the name Daniella Nani came up, under the heading of Overlord-A+ cruisers. Tapping a few buttons on his comms, he called the merc. “YAH. DIS ID DANIELLA. VHAT YOU VANT?” screeched a crackly, staticky voice across the high end speakers. Muttering and shouting stopped Ladon from making any sort of response for a few seconds, then the static and breaking up of the signal stopped. “Ach, sorry about zat. Me crew’s been gettin’ lazy lately. Vhat is it you vant?” Daniella asked in a thick accent. “Daniella! Great to hear from you. It’s Ladon. I have a job for you!” Daniella immediately burst into laughter. “Ladon! So you haven’t died yet! Ach, zat’s five tousand credits Belzram owes me now! Vhat’s the job, sveetums?” Ladon tapped a few more buttons on his dash and sent a file to Daniella’s computer. “I need you to protect this ship. It’s got some very important cargo in it and I will be VERY upset if I lose it.” Daniella mumbled something in her native tongue as she read the printout, then chuckled. “Zis is an Ares-X+ class, Ladon. Ze bandits vould have to be out of zer minds to attack zis. But money is money. Not a bit of harm shall come to your ship, I guarantee it. Daniella out.” Screechy static burst out of the speakers again and the comm shut down. Ladon sat back in his chair, feeling better now that Daniella was protecting Jenna. Maybe she would be a bit upset with him, but he’d rather have her upset than hurt or dead. His comms crackled to life again as one of his pilots radioed him. “Ladon, something’s up in Beta Pindola. Jaring hasn’t answered his comms since Falcon attacked him. We know he’s fine, or at least his ship is, so what do you want to do, sir?” Ladon checked the ships log. “He’s on his way to the Spire repair station. He’ll be fine. Probably his comms unit was damaged in the fight.” Crackling, the speaker staticked again, then the man on the other end said, “Ok. Leston out.” Ladon’s stomach growled. Having had to deal with calls all day, he had neglected to eat. Bemused, he stood and punched a few commands into the dash to refer all calls to his message recorder, then pressed the button to open his cockpit. Stepping out into the docking bay of the Wave trade station, he looked at the Overlord-A+ class ship in the docking bay next to his puny Flyer-X+, the Justice. The Flyer was a good ship, to be sure, but not strong enough to contend with anything larger than an Ares-A. Jenna got the Ares-X+ class because Ladon was worried about her safety. Nothing scared him more than the thought of losing her. His stomach prodded him again, demanding food. Chuckling at his absentmindedness, he plodded off to the nearest SpaceWay to get a sub sandwich. In his ship, the comms crackled to life, then redirected to the message recorder. A red light blinked ominously. After haggling with the refinery owner over the price of the advanced alloys, Jenna decided that it wasn’t worth it to buy from Empire, as their prices were far too high, much higher than her contact had suggested they were. With a scathing retort at the refinery owner’s last remark, she tossed her luxurious hair over her shoulders and thup thupped off in her high heels. She checked her navi-pad and noticed that the Overlord-A+ class that had been shadowing her was just sitting outside the refinery. She had scanned it more than 5 times and the results were not very encouraging. The owner of the ship had purchased a transponder blocker, so she couldn’t tell who it was that owned the ship, but she could still see the loadout. Plasma guns, while easy to avoid in fighters, were nigh on impossible to dodge in an Ares, and she deeply regretted not upgrading the engines before she left Ladon on the Wave trade station. Three plasma III guns were going to pose a problem in any confrontation between her and this mysterious Overlord. The 128mm artillery cannons in the back were even more worrying, and the missile launchers were loaded with Interceptors. All in all, a formidable combination. “Great...and just as we became relevant as a faction,” she muttered. Zenith Intergalactic had just become affluent. Losing the Hera ''would cost them dearly. Engrossed as she was in debating what to do about the Overlord, she did not hear the plasma rifles being powered up behind her. She did, however notice the shot that burned into her right leg. She screamed and shrieked as the bubbling plasma ate through her low-grade armor and scorched through her skin. Falling down, she hit her head on a bar and blackness took her. Outside the refinery, the Overlord loomed imposingly. Its plasma weapons began to glow as the power in the ship was channeled into them. They fired suddenly, impacting with the shields. They flexed and bowed, but did not give way. This resilience was suddenly overwhelmed by a second round blasting through the shields of the refinery and smashing into the hangar doors. The Overlord docked forcibly and marines with top-of-the-line equipment poured out of the ship like hornets out of a nest, then undocked and began to target the laser turrets all around the refinery. Havoc ensued. Ladon returned cheerily to his ship, having had an excellent lunch. The SpaceWay manager had given him a free lunch on account of Zenith Intergalactic breaking into the top 100 known factions. The sandwich had been absolutely incredible. Whistling happily, he clicked the button on his auth chit and the door to his Flyer swished open. The first thing he saw was the blinking red light on his dashboard. Plopping into his seat, still munching on a cookie he had gotten from the food shop, he hit the playback button. A video screen popped up and he spat out the cookie as he saw the love of his life strapped to a chair, beaten, bloody, and burned by plasma shots. She was still alive, but barely. Sparks shot off in the background. “Ladon Adessai, I presume I have your attention? This is Boris Vogel, leader of Cygni Force. We have heard of your recent success and wish to...partake in it. If you do not transfer every credit you own in this galaxy to the accompanying bank address, you will never see your beloved Jenna again. Perhaps this is cliched, but I did always love the old shows from Terra!” The screen stayed popped up, though Boris did not appear. Presumably, he was routing the signal of Jenna from a remote location. Ladon sat there for about two minutes staring into space as his anger grew. Finally it grew to a point where he could not contain it and he screamed. He screamed like no one had ever screamed before. He screamed so loud that the wineglasses in the minibar on the Flyer shattered into pieces. He screamed so loud that the video screen began to crack. He screamed so loud that Boris on the other end of the call went bleach white. It was a long time before he stopped screaming. When he did, he took three deep breaths to center himself. He opened his eyes and looked at the screen. “You have made your first and last mistake. You will not live past the end of this week. If you will look at the stats I am sending you, you will see that you have made a grave mistake in thinking that we are sheep.” His statement was interrupted by marines storming the screen, brutally cutting down the kidnappers, and making sure their deaths were as painful as possible. Jenna’s eyes went wide as the burly, disheveled, but well-equipped fighters demolished a squad of 20 men without losing a single fighter. Daniella Nani came into view of the screen. “Ach, I take it zis is ze precious cargo you vanted me to protect? I am sorry I vas not faster; I only realized ze danger vhen I detected plasma shots in ze hangar.” To Jenna, she said, “I am sorry I vas not faster in acting, devushka. I vas in zat Overlord you kept scanning. Poor Edvard vas getting jumpy at ze constant scanning.” To Boris, she said, “I vas hired to protect zis woman and I have. Your friends in zis particular refinery are all dead. I have sustained damage to my ship, however, and I vant retribution. Which means that ve declare VAR on you and your allies, Cygni. Boris, you little shitstain, you have crossed me for ze last time.” The marines with her cheered and made lewd gestures at the camera. Daniella looked at the camera, speaking to Ladon now. “I failed my charge, but I vill not allow zis to go unpunished. I take it zat – ''it ''– vill come into play, so I vill rendezvous vith your repair station in ze Galene sector. Daniella out.” Ladon sat there in his seat for about fve minutes, breathing heavily, until he was calm enough to act. He strode out of his Flyer and marched to the Wave trade station’s comms room, banging on the door and waving a credit chit. The man operating the comms opened the door and had the credit chit unceremoniously tossed at his face as Ladon wrestled past him. Ladon yanked the general announcement mic and spoke into it. “I need a pilot who is not just competent in a Flyer-X to take my ship and follow me. I’m offering a considerable amount of money as reward for this job, so think about it. Meet me in the docking bay and follow my ship.” Ladon tossed the mic on the dash and feedback grated through the speakers all throughout the station. By the time he had made it back to the hangar bay, he had almost 20 people waiting for him. “Captain Ladon, sir. We are from a group of people who are...invested in seeing the demise of certain people from Cygni and Empire Corporation. We would like to...come along, as it were. We can get people to crew your ship if you need a crew.” The man in the lead doffed a cap and fell into stride with Ladon as he made preparations to leave. “What do you mean by invested?” Ladon asked. “We have...debts with certain members of those corporations that they must pay, in one way or the other.” Ladon snorted. “Bounty hunters, eh? Come along then.” He swung an expansive arm at the hangar bay. “Meet my pride and joy, the flagship of Zenith Intergalactic. The ''Destruction.” Light gleamed off the hull of the Overlord-A+ class vessel, making it look even more impressive. The massive turrets that housed the ship’s 7 Laser V’s glinted as they whirred, performing minor self-maintenance. The bounty hunters’ faces drained of color and they looked at him. Ladon laughed. “Come on, get your men and get to your ships. I don’t have all day.” They snapped smart salutes at him and dashed into their ships. The leader pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket and muttered something into it, which was answered by a curse and shouts. Soon, a horde of rough-looking men came marching up to the door of the Destruction, which opened as Ladon pressed the button on his auth chit. The last man stopped and said, “Captain, I volunteer to take your Flyer-X and support.” The young man’s forehead gleamed with persperation, but his eyes were eager. “Go on then. Here’s the auth chit.” The boy snapped a salute and dashed into the fighter. Ladon turned and marched into the Destruction. “It’s payback time,” he snarled as the door closed. Stay tuned for more of their adventures... :) Category:Player Factions